Monthly Archives: May 2013

So I wake up in the morning and I am still exhausted from the pain. I can’t even get up off the couch i am getting so tired and weak. I just sit around all morning getting more and more tired and not farting or pooping but still eating mind you.

My hubby left for work (I made him go, he didn’t want to leave me cause I had sent my sister-in-law home) and I figured if i kept feeling like this i would call the doctor. So i finally grab the phone and head for the bed, i figured i would go back to sleep for a little nap and then call the doctor if i didn’t feel better when i got up, but i barely made it to bed, wanted to call her right then but passed out phone in hand.

Thank God, my hubby decided to come back home and check on me, talk about instincts. He doesn’t work close to home and i never called him, but luckily he shows up, he is looking for me, calling my name throughout the house and i can’t even answer. He can’t find me and comes up to the bedroom where i can barely talk to him. He kinda freaks out (for a not freaking out type of guy) luckily he is a doer and a god send in an emergency)
He is asking me if i talked to the doctor and i told him i meant to but passed out before I could call. So he calls the doctor and she says take her to emergency immediately. He starts to help me off the bed and the doorbell rings and it’s a neighbor with a plant, how sweet, how nice, what timing. a potted plant for the potted plant. We’re making a sitcom here…..!

So he runs back upstairs, says our neighbor is here, she’ll help us, let’s get you to the car. I pick my head up and I whispered in a croak to my husband, give me a washcloth, I need to freshen up first. Like the emergency room crew that was going to stick things in every orifice and take anything they could out of any oriface, would give a damn if I made sure my armpits smelled lemony fresh.

God knows I think I am wonder woman, and want to be a clean Wonder Woman, but when someone finds you on the floor face down ass up and you can’t talk, it’s time to go to the hospital, ya think?

So, as I’m taking my sponge bath….oh yeah, I always win…..I’m trying to wash up, in comes my husband with our neighbor and i basically had fallen off the toilet and was laying on the bathroom floor, washcloth in hand. My poor neighbor says “are you ok?” that’s like……”aside from all this, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” My hubby calls the family, fills them in, picks me up, schleps me to the car, and everyone is on the way to meet us at the hospital.

So we get to the hospital, now remember what i said, this place is closing and has so few people i think its the same person switching uniforms and pretending to be a nurse, a doctor and the janitor.

They take me right into emergency and hook me up to an IV. Unfortunately, the nurse (janitor?) can’t find a vein. She is prodding and poking me like a pin cushion, and finally sticks it in a teeny weeny vein on my hand below my pinky finger. (any orifice…hmmmm?) Look at your hand and picture it! And she misses and it is burning like a hot poker under my skin, and swelling up so my hand looks like I just went 10 rounds and lost the fight and I’m screaming (I don’t scream, trust me) And she says I’m just being a baby.

In walks my sister in law, hears the howling, and thank god she says “she never complains, take that out now!” God I love a bossy take charge sister-in-law!! And she did, and admitted it was “leaking” and put it somewhere else. I would have liked to put it somewhere else on her! Believe me I love and respect the people in the medical field. We have the best doctors and nurses ever in this country, unfortunately… I’m sure this gal was really the janitor.

So while all this is going on, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law who are both certified acupressurists and awesome in their field. http://www.therapeuticacupressure.com/home/ Check it out!! My mother-in-law is the guru of this!!! anyway, they are double teaming me and giving me the session of my life. And right before their eyes, (the people in the emergency room…janitors?) are watching my blood pressure go back to normal, my numbers all get better, and the life comes back into me. The IV is finally flowing so I am getting some fluids and then the drink of dreck!

Then they made me drink that disgusting liquid chalk so they could look for blockages or intestinal knots, worst smoothie ever!!! Can you at least put some flavoring in so i can get it down and not throw it up? How bout making it cold? it’s freaking warm! YUK!!!!!

Long story short, after being readmitted and a battery of tests, they saw the white stuff never went down any lovey paths but was sitting somewhere waiting further instructions. My small intestines were not working (which i guess meant neither were the large ones… everybody’s on strike) Really? Now we have a union problem? So I was in pain every night, because every bit of food I ate, and every drop of water I drank, was sitting in my stomach but couldn’t move, had nowhere to go….. here i was thinking it was just gas but it was like having a blockage. So without absorbing any of the water, i became totally dehydrated and that’s why i passed out at home. And probably why the janitor couldn’t find a vein. Or she was just a crummy janitor.

I had been getting much love and help (and acupressure sessions) from my wonderful family here (I am sure the sessions kept me from the horrible tube they wanted to shove up my nose and down my stomach to release the pressure, and feed me with, by the way, been looking pregnant the whole time.) Oh yeah, I was reeeaal pretty. But the doctor was so impressed with the accupressue results and how much better i did after the sessions and with the liquids in me, she said we will hold off and see how you are in the morning. So another session from the IGM gurus and a good night’s sleep and voila! i almost felt human again.

So they let me go home to see what would happen. They put me on a liquid diet to see if it would rehabilitate on its own so they didn’t have to go in and do exploratory surgery to get the gears going. I woke up in the morning…..AND lo and behold…. 7 farts and 5 hershey squirts later and I’m doing laundry and making lunch… Life is good again…..Unbelievable what a good accupressure session and some fluid will do!

Finally had a good day and night for the first time. Ate some instant oatmeal and a little pasta and all was well. (Had eggs the first day home and it did me in. I was a mess. Found out the protein/fat foods which are eggs, dairy, and meat (which i don’t eat anyway) are the hardest to digest when there are problems….who knew, I thought an egg was mushy…..they said eat mushy foods. I got better quick then and my colongave a sigh of relief for the break….actually if it would friggin’ sigh a little more, I wouldn’t have all this bloating and pressure.

So the good news was, I lost weight so it was all worth it. It was small portions of carbos, like a little pasta, potatoes, oatmeal, ya da ya da goes down smoooooth and actually comes out smoother…LOL…..oh no, I won’t go there. But my doctor said that means the inards are a’workin’ and I could start little by little adding stuff. I was just kinda scared to eat anything that would bring back the excruciating pain!!! But I had turned a corner and was so thrilled to be cancer free and on my way to recovery.

By the way, while all this was going on, the funny thing was I had a swollen neck and was freaking out about it. I was figuring that the cancer spread to my thyroid and I’m doomed while they’re waiting for me to fart. So I call her back up and tell her about ny neck and she says, I hate to break it to you, but you’ve always had a swollen neck and we were all afraid to say something cause you can be a little testy! LOL. And as it turned out, it was actually just a swollen glad and I am totally cancer free, but you know once you’ve had cancer a frigging hangnail looks like it could be cancerous!

So again, kudos to you wonderful brave people fighting the good fight and keep your energy, your sense of humor and your positive spirits going strong! This was not intended to offend anyone but to make light of my own experience and help others laugh at theirs.

So I leave you with this…..

I’m uterusless, but not useless….and quite content.

But I sure won’t be birthin’ no babies (thank you Gone with the Wind)

I will be opening the new sloan kettering comedy club in Biloxi, and then on to the “We don’t need no sticking ovaries” tour…..

Sheila Kay…at your cervix…..

Good night and try the veal…or possibly a kosher meal, hospital food sucks

So I am writing this from the islands, I am on a ship, so I will post a pic of one of the fabulous places I go to when I need free wifi, this is Evita’s little Italian Restaurant in Jamaica. They put a jamaican spin on italian food, it was wonderful and I thank God and my lucky stars that I am alive and able to travel and work in such gorgeous places. Right now I’m in a burger king in the grand caymen islands but you can walk outside your door and see that! HA!

So, OK, we were talking about my cancer experience and we were at the HMO part…..You know what HMO really stands for? I’m jewish so it means, How Much? OY! But it really comes from the phrase , “HEY MOE .” See, when Moe of the Three Stooges, was playing a doctor….Paging Dr Howard, Dr Fine, Dr. Howard. He discovered that a patient would forget the pain in his foot if he was poked hard enough in the eye. Works every time. So poke me!

I wanted to use my own doctor that found the cancer, but she was out of network. (yes I said she in case you hadn’t noticed before! Thank you very much) If someone’s pulling out my frigging organs, I want them to have played a tune with those same organs….

Now with an HMO, you can choose the doctor you want. But it’s a little difficult. Kinda like choosing the ass you want. If you don’t want the one god gave ya, ya gotta pay for a different one. no backsies.
So, like I said, I wanted to use my doctor, but the HMO of course wants you to use their doctors. Their doctors basically fall into two categories. Drs. who are no longer accepting new patients, and doctors who are accepting new patients, but don’t participate in the friggin’ HMO. And then, I found a doctor who is still in the HMO and it’s a woman, and accepting new patients and has an office just 134 miles away, which is the closest one with all the things I wanted, and as I discovered when I got there, a diploma from a third world country I’ve never even heard of. But, she did say she could perform the hysterectomy right in her office as an out patient and considering that all I’d be paying is a $20 co-payment, I was thinking of giving it a shot. But, then I started thinking of the thing that might go wrong and who wants to wake up and find out they took out way too many things and maybe put things you don’t want back in? Like a sponge. At least I could clean up after I eat. LOL! So I decided I would stay with my doctor and pay the out of network percentage…which is why I’m working here today, writing this blog and which is why you need to buy 742 dvds from my website. Thanks very much www.sheilakay.com

OK, back to the mri, yes, they found it, it’s small, it’s contained, let’s go get it right now. But the decision was to take everything out, ya just never know when that one pesky vicious cancer cell sneaks into the pond, swims upstream and decides to bake in the sands of my ovaries.

So now, I’m in the hospital, the handsome male nurse says, while hooking up the IV…“You’re just gonna feel a little prick…..” really, how sad for you, and no thanks I’m married. Then I don’t remember a thing, but I woke up and doc says my surgery went well, ya da ya da It’s all good….Can you really ya da ya da cancer surgery? Seinfeld would be so proud.

I’m appropriately dressed in a gown that fits like my mothers moo moos, all I need are the worn furry slippers and some knee hi roll up nylons and I’m her……of course I’m waiting for coffee and cake, cause I really am her. I wake up, I fall asleep, I’m awake, I’m asleep, I’m awake, I mumble stupid stuff, I drool, I’m asleep….Then I’m out (sleep/coma) then I’m up… cake? Then I’m out…. I stay overnight.

Next morning, I’m up but not real alert, but I’m eating. A gals gotta eat and they brought breakfast. I’m only eating a bite here, a bite there, but I have no idea, they’re not supposed to give me any solid food until I pee, take a poop, pass some gas all the stuff ya gotta do or ya can’t go home…..And none of that’s happening. But I’m eating, and I want to get out. Not one for sitting around in hospitals. Heck, I’ve been been here a whole day, SEND MY BUTT HOME.

So they have you get up and walk right away now. No laying around. I’m schleping down the hall in this gorgeous outfit, but I’m not pooping, not in the hall, not in the toilet. And just when they said, ok, we’ll send you home with laxatives, I am suddenly in excruciating pain……I am doubled over and can’t even crawl back into bed.

Now they tell me it’s probably gas and the fact that I haven’t gone to the bathroom in a couple of days…..And the problem is, they don’t really want to give me pain meds cause I’m backed up, and pain meds constipate ya, but I’m in so much pain and I don’t give a $#!t that I can’t take a $#!t!!!! what a catch 22 I’m in.

Now I’m pretty stoic with a high pain tolerance, but this was really bad. So my doc talks me into staying one more night, and since I can’t even stand up, let alone walk, I say, ok. Yeah, I’m a good sport, and not an idiot!

Next day, I’m feeling a little better, walking, of course like a 112 year old woman….but I’m walking, I’m talking, I’m dragging the friggin pole with the bags, and I talk them into letting me go home, cause I don’t want to pay the co pay for the Sheraton Palace Hospital which is understaffed and feels like a morgue it’s so empty and silent.

So home I go. (Now before I forget, let me again remind you that I am at a hospital that is closing down due to financial problems and is being run by a skeletal crew of dr’s and nurses. and I am one of the last patients to be seen) I don’t mean seen alive, I mean treated. There are only 2 other patients even on my floor, the staff is limited but it is where my doc worked and it’s her last days here too. She loved this place, fought to help keep it open, and I had every confidence in being there. But, you need to know this to appreciate the rest of this story.

So home I go. My two sister-in-laws were extremely helpful, one is a nurse with more letters after her name than the doctor, and she brought 5 different kinds of laxatives for me, she bought every laxative known to man, and some not. Then every dried fruit and herb and tea with “laxative” qualities. . I was afraid I would end up with a nuclear launch that would blast me thru the ceiling if I didn’t get a seat belt to hold me to the toilet. But NOoooooo, none of those worked. The other one came to help me in the house and stay with me and to give me an accupresure session. Our family is full of fabulous accupressure practitioners. But after a day I sent her home cause I didn’t want her sitting and watching me do nothing but waiting for the wind.

I was so great when I came home, mainly you are just so happy to be alive and in your own house you forget everything else. But by the days end, I was a bitch, the gas pain and the inability to do the doody deed, turned me into Godzilla. It was a very bad night, and I was so mean to the hubby, jeez, I wanted to stab him in the eye with a bottle of senekot….and the doc said don’t take the pain pills it will put you back to square one with the constipation, you’ve squeaked out a teeny bit of gas so your colon is starting to work…….hang in there, take the laxatives, the gas pills, some ibuprofen, drink water, yada yada… and that’s when I started wishing everyone dead. Then I did pass a little gas But, the gas had no steam, had to hold my butt open to fart. It was like a tropical breeze trying to push in a castle door, a bolted heavy door…. If you never had gas then you don’t get it. But who hasn’t had gas? I wanted to hear….”Lets get ready to rumble”… and the sound of explosions in my ears…. But not a squeak did I get, nor a poop did I do. Finally I passed out for the night.

So let me leave you here and next week you can wake up with me and finish the fun journey….. Thank and hang in there, whoo whoo, just like the perils of Pauline!